Category: Informatics

Yes, I’m really still here

Well my goodness I haven’t posted since the end of 2017! The time since then and now has been eventful as always…

I am still working at Texas Children’s Hospital, which I love. I moved into a new role a few months ago, and have been enjoyed the challenge of redefining my skillset yet again. I work in Perioperative Services as a Clinical Data Specialist with a great team, and am looking forward to some exciting projects there.

The DNP journey has been put on hold for the time being. With two kids in high school, one of whom will be graduating next year, it wasn’t the right time to be pursuing my doctorate. In a few years both boys will be off on their own at college or some other adventure, so I will revisit going back to school. Right now I am just enjoying being more present for my family, and it’s nice not having my nose in my laptop every evening and all weekend.

I’ve become more involved in the Houston chapter of HIMSS, working with the #TXHIMSS19 committee as the Communications Chair. The upcoming Texas HIMSS conference has a great lineup, with #WomeninHIT Rebecca Kaul and Karen DeSalvo giving the keynotes.

If you have a passion for Informatics and you’re not a current member of HIMSS, I highly encourage you to join. Depending on where you work, your organization may already have an affilation and you can take advantage of a complimentary membership.

I’m looking forward to #HIMSS19, where I will have a poster at the Nursing Informatics Symposium. I’m still working with NASN on their data initiative “Every Student Counts”, and the poster will address the challenges facing school nurses around data interoperability. Stay tuned for posts and updates from that event!

Yes, I’m still here

I’m back! The last eight months have been a whirlwind of activity…let’s see:

  • I started a new job at Texas Children’s Hospital on the Clinical Informatics team. TCH is a world renowned hospital for women and children in the Texas Medical Center, and I am so impressed with the organizational culture. I work with a talented team of nurse informaticists, and am looking forward to collaborating with them on the many upcoming projects we have in the works.
  • Remember how I said I needed a break from school? Guess who started the DNP program at UT Health School of Nursing? I’m loving the scholarly focus, and wish there were more hours in the day so I could read everything they assign!

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  • HURRICANE HARVEY. Ugh. We were very fortunate to not flood during this epic storm, but my community was pretty hard hit, and many close friends were completeley flooded out of their homes.
  • The Alliance for Nursing Informatics has a Twitter feed now, which I help run. Follow them today to learn all about what ANI does, and how you can get involved.
  • I was asked by NASN to write a guest blog for HIMSS on Immunization data. You can read all about that here.
  • I am throwing my hat into the ring for a national ANIA Board position. If you are an ANIA member, I’d love to have your vote! You have until November 10th to cast a vote. And if you are not a member of the American Nursing Informatics Association, consider joining today. I have met and learned from many talented informaticists, and gained new friends in the process.

 

Hello there!

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Hi from the Texas Medical Center

Well I guess it has been quite a while since I last posted. The last six months have been a whirlwind…

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First I started a new job as a Physician Clinical Support Analyst at Memorial Herman in the Texas Medical Center. The last time I worked in the Med Center was early 2001, when I was still an ICU Nurse. Boy have things changed! I forgot how large and sprawling the hospital complexes are. My facility, which is a teaching hospital and Level I Trauma Center, always has something innovative and exciting going on. I work with a great team, and even though I have only been there five months I am enjoying the work. We train all of the new incoming resident and attending Physicians on the EHR, as well as work on a multitude of other projects to help enhance Clinician use of all things digital.

Then this happened…

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My husband and mother-in-law

I FINALLY GRADUATED! My three year journey to obtain my Masters in Applied Healthcare Informatics from SBMI finally concluded in May. The graduation ceremony was a blur and at the TMC X facility, which looks like an exciting place to work. The first few weeks after graduation I actually had this nagging feeling I was forgetting to take a quiz, or finish editing a paper. It definitely took me a while to shift out of “school mode”. I’m proud that I took the leap three years ago and applied to SBMI, but also a little sad it is now all over.

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At the HIMSS TX event in Houston

So what’s next? I’ve recently become involved in Houston HIMSS as well as ANIA Houston. I’ve been at my new job almost six months now, but there is still so much to learn. In some aspects I am starting over professionally, as this is a very different type of job for me. This is also the first summer in six years I don’t have a school nurse schedule, so no summer break for me! I am still in touch with my NASN and JJSHLP friends, but sadly I will not be able to attend NASN2016 this year. I’ll be busy with my team training all of the new UT Resident Physicians. More updates soon!

2015 in review

It’s the end of 2015! I can’t believe it. Where has the year gone… I should probably get back to posting on this blog as well. There’s some good news to come in the New year!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,900 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 48 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Limping over the finish line

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I have three pages left in my last assignment of the semester. THREE PAGES. And I am literally limping over the finish line, folks. I love to write! I can write all kinds of interesting stuff when the occasion calls for it. And I have enjoyed this particular class. But for some reason I am STUCK on the last three pages of this last paper of the semester. Facebook check? Done. Twitter accounts managed for the day? Done. E-mails answered? Done. Daily perusal of LInked In for new job postings? Done. Done again. Multiple times. And there sit those three pages, still not writing themselves yet.

Check out Tweets from #ANIA15

So I wasn’t able to attend the ANIA annual conference this year, but I have been following all of the goings on via #ANIA15. I have been so fortunate to be a part of the ANIA Social Media workgroup chaired by the fantastic Dr. Cheryl Parker, and we have been tweeting with @ANIAInformatics– Cheryl directly from the conference, and me from home. Hopefully next year I can attend in person!

Keep up with #HIMSS15 via Twitter

If you’re like me and couldn’t make it to HIMSS15 this year, you can follow along with all of the posts via Twitter at #HIMSS15. For someone new to the industry such as myself, following conference posts is a great way to keep up with the latest and greatest, and get a sense of what is important in the field.

Also check out the posts from the American Nursing Informatics Association at @ANIAInformatics. They are at HIMSS15 as well!

 

Publication and new opportunities on the horizon

It looks like Spring is finally here! I am sitting in my sunny living room with the windows open, loving this beautiful weather. The semester is winding down, for both my school nurse job and my graduate program. Some exciting news to report- my article on School Nurses and social media is going to be published this May in the NASN School Nurse journal! I am very proud of this accomplishment, and can’t wait to see it both online and in the journal. There will be a podcast to go along with the article, so stay tuned for that. I am also going to present a poster on the same topic at the NASN Annual conference in Philadelphia this summer, which will be a great experience.

My family and I spent Spring Break in Washington, D.C. this year. My Houston born kids were over the moon when we landed and there was snow on the ground. We had a very busy week sightseeing at all of the popular places there- the National Mall and Monuments, the Smithsonian museums, the Holocaust museum, and Arlington cemetery. It was a fun week, and I am glad we got to spend some quality family time together.

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My favorite statue from the FDR memorial

This time next year I will be graduating from SBMI with my Healthcare Informatics Masters degree, so I am beginning my job search for an Informatics position. It’s time to start putting all those theories into practice! It’s always nerve wracking to shift gears and move in a different direction professionally, but that has always been the case with my nursing career. I’m still going to keep ties with my school nursing colleagues, as I think there are still some untapped opportunities there. I have been fortunate to be a member of several committees and workgroups at the regional, state and national level, and I am constantly learning new things from my colleagues. And just when I thought I was done completely with school, I learned of this. DNP, anyone? Maybe I’m not done after all!

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